Mount Shasta

February 2008

Many a time on my way North I had seen the magical Mt. Shasta as it peered up from the horizon, creeping up and becoming majestic and dominating. For all the times I'd seen it, I'd nver stopped off and gotten up and close. One of my good friends had some free time and over Presidents' Day we went on up snowshoeing and snow camping on this beauty. The weather was perfect, clear and sunny and still. We camped on the snow in the shadow of the mountain. In the middle of the night the moonlight lit up its snowy slopes, domineering everything in view, looming and silent and conveying a message of peace.

We snowshoed into Horse Camp from Bunny Flat and spent the next day pack-free tromping up the mountain. A combination of being out of shape and the altitude got me something fierce just shy of 9400 feet, but as I rested there I could see out at the same height as the highest peaks around, revealing a gorgeous land of peaks, mountain lakes, and valleys in the distance all around. Having been so busy recently, I felt like the mountain reminded me that regardless of all that goes on the beauty and vastness of the world is always there.

The Photographs

Unfortunately when I got to the mountain I found that the lightmeter battery in my camera was dead. I shot a roll of Kodachrome PKR 64 using sunny f16 and stopped down what I thought was right. For as long as its been since I've tried to just eyeball the settings, I think I got a few good shots here and there.

The camera and lenses used were my old Minolta manual system was in use. Click on "Next" in the upper right to begin.